NOVEL NEXT Chapter 494: The Dragon Child
Boom.
Ethan shot out of the cavern mouth and slammed into the ground like a cannonball.
Crack, crack, crack…
The sharp sound of something breaking echoed through the air. His defensive skill, Iron Hide, had activated instinctively, only to shatter in an instant from the impact. Yet to Ethan's surprise, when his feet struck the earth, the pain he expected never came. Instead, a brilliant pulse of multicolored light rippled across his bones, leaving him completely unharmed. He stood there, bewildered, with a dawning realization of just how far his body had grown. The Quintessence Bone within him still concealed depths he had yet to truly awaken.
"Ethan?"
Several voices rose from below. His landing had drawn attention, and the few figures gathered there finally recognized the person they had been waiting for all this time. Ethan, however, had no idea anyone was expecting him. Their fixed gazes left him at a loss.
"Uh… what exactly are you all doing here?" he asked cautiously.
"Waiting for you," the three of them answered in unison.
Ethan blinked. "Huh?"
"Didn't know when you'd be back," Hank grumbled, already sounding put upon. "I thought I'd be stuck in this hole forever, never getting another decent drink."
"Yeah," Quinn added with a long sigh. "Half a year of nothing but Dragon meat… I'm practically sick of it."
Their casual complaints left Ethan increasingly confused. He turned to Regis, hoping for a clearer explanation.
Regis chuckled and finally filled him in. "Six months ago, she saved us. Without the Sigil of the Wild Legion, none of us could leave this sealed place, so all we could do was wait for you. As for food, well… all we had were the Dragon corpses sealed here."
"Dragon corpses? Where?" Ethan swept the entire chamber with his Soul Sense, but found nothing resembling a carcass.
"She ate them all." Regis gestured upward.
Floating cross-legged in midair, bathed in an blue radiance, was the Dragon Child. Her glow was the only light piercing the vast, cold cavern. She sat perfectly still, clearly immersed in a deep trance, absorbing and refining energy. Ethan remembered how she had always sought out life essence. Morzan had once told him she needed vast reserves of it to rebuild a body of flesh and blood. Her time sealed inside an egg had been little more than a desperate preservation, a way to prevent her soul from dissolving. When Ethan and his companions entered the domain of the Illusionary Qilin, she had remained behind. Now she had already hatched, crossed this place on her own, and undergone who knew how many transformations.
Ethan turned his attention back to Regis. "What about Beastfall City? Why was it split apart?"
He had only just learned that Beastfall City and the Sigil of the Wild Legion were not separate things at all, but two sides of one construct. The Sigil acted as the control key, while the city itself was the true body. Each of the four City Lords of the Sea of Death, when holding their respective sigils inside their cities, could double their strength. That was the real purpose behind those artifacts.
"To save us," Regis explained grimly, "she lashed out with her tail. The strike shattered Beastfall City itself and broke through the seal over this land."
"But Ethan… what exactly is your friend? Why is her true form… a loach with legs?"
Hank, already unsteady, had produced a flask from his coat. After a few swigs, he was tipsy enough to blurt out the comparison. Regis and Quinn immediately shot him sharp looks, their eyes not on him but on the flask clutched in his hand.
"This is my last stash," Hank muttered defensively. "I was saving it for the day I died."
The three of them were several centuries old between them, and yet here they were, squabbling over liquor like children. Ethan couldn't help but laugh. Hank's drunken jab about the Dragon Child's form made him smirk as well. To him, she was no loach. She was a true dragon, the kind revered in those Eastern fantasies he'd read back on Earth. The creatures Westerners called dragons, with their bat-like wings and hulking bodies, were to Ethan nothing more than flying lizards in comparison.
Since the Dragon Child clearly had no intention of acknowledging him, Ethan turned his attention back to Regis. His expression hardened. "Lord Regis, what happened after you left Hurricane City? Who was chasing you? Where are your pursuers now? Why did the Central Dominion Guard turn against us? And… where's Uncle Jed?"
The three men's faces darkened at the mention of Jed. Ethan's chest tightened immediately. Something had gone wrong.
Regis's voice grew heavy as he began. "A year ago, the Great Change struck. One of the Suns vanished from the sky…"
From Regis's account, Ethan pieced together the truth. The Sun that had disappeared from the Umbral Star was the very one he had dragged away using the forbidden technique. That act had set off a catastrophe across the Umbral Star. The Windspirit Faction's mountain headquarters had collapsed entirely, and space itself had split open in places. The destruction was so great that, for the first time, the world saw how deep the faction's roots truly went. In that single moment, twelve Saint-rank powerhouses revealed themselves from within their ranks. And that was just at the mountain itself; who could imagine what strength the rest of the Umbral Star concealed?
At the same time, the barrier that sealed off the Sea of Death shifted. Shaw Zilo, the fool who called himself the City Lord of Forgotten City, suddenly recited a cryptic four-line verse:
"Celestial fire descends upon the dome…
When the ancient barrier breaks open…
Blood King arrives, the Dead Sea perishes…
Only a sliver of hope remains."
The other three City Lords—Regis among them—immediately recalled the continuation of that prophecy, the part never spoken aloud:
"Four seals unite, the King appears.
The sand sea unified, now at hand.
Eight years to break the void and return to the sky. One hundred years, the sand sea becomes a forest."
Those words were no secret to the rulers of the sea of death. And right as they echoed in their minds, the sky itself shifted. The light curtain above vanished. The Sun, once blazing in the endless dark, disappeared completely. Everyone knew then that it had been drawn into the void they called Beyond the Stars. And just as surely, everyone knew the Sea of Death's sudden unrest was tied to that loss.
What followed was even worse. The four trial sanctums, which could only be opened with the four City Lord seals, all revealed their light curtains at once. And when the glow faded, only three seals returned. The one belonging to Beastfall City was missing.
As Regis and the others moved to reclaim their seals, the Windspirit Faction intervened. Twelve Saint-rank powerhouses struck at once. Against such might, there was no contest. The seals of both Clearspring City and Forgotten City fell into their hands.
Shaw Zilo, the bumbling lord of Forgotten City, went silent, though a flash of cruelty glinted in his eyes. Baelor Wane of Clearspring City, usually the most cautious and opportunistic of men, abandoned all pretense. He led a thousand warriors in a direct stand against the Windspirit Faction.
But the Windspirit Faction no longer bothered to hide in the shadows. With their strength laid bare, they dismissed Clearspring's accusations with contempt. Yet Regis noticed they showed a measure of hesitation—though not toward himself, Hank, or Quinn. Their wariness was directed at Uncle Jed.
Jed, who had spent the entire confrontation lying in a rocking chair, lazily chewing a slice of melon. Jed, whose relaxed posture was nothing but a veil for the power radiating just beneath the surface. The moment those twelve Saint-rank enemies appeared, he had already been speaking to Regis and the others silently, telepathically, preparing them for what was to come.